


the firsts

by komkommertijd



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Back Pain, Birds, Crack Fic, Crack Treated Seriously, Existential Crisis, Gen, Midlife Crisis, Mild Language, don't ask okay, inspired by a comedy show, it's really just 1.7k about a crow and Dan being old as fuck, just Daniel thinking Thoughts™
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:07:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29136027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komkommertijd/pseuds/komkommertijd
Summary: At 31, life is really weird.orDaniel has a mid-life crisis, and the crow in his living room doesn't really help with that.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	the firsts

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched Felix Lobrecht's show “Hype” (can be found on Netflix but it's in German) last year and couldn't help but think about Daniel when he told the crow story, so I started writing this and then abandoned the draft for three months, as I usually do. 
> 
> Anyway, here's midlife crisis Daniel with a bird and mild comedic content because Daniel is a walking shitpost (thank you for that comparison to my dear friend [emotionalsupportfastcars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emotionalsupportfastcars/pseuds/emotionalsupportfastcars)) and this is his purely his point of view.
> 
> There's not much else to be said about this fic, so have fun reading it :)

At 31, life is really weird. 31 is a humorless age, a boring point in life at which everything just keeps repeating itself. The slightly worrisome limbo of having a more or less fixed routine that stays the same, day by day, week by week, is slowly settling in, an inevitable process. It's an age at which one doesn't learn something new every day anymore, no new formulas in maths or physics, no new vocabulary in a language one does not care enough about to actually learn properly, no new feelings and situations, no new experiences connected to butterflies in one's stomach or crippling anxiety.

31 is an age at which having mail is never a good sign. It's always bills, business-related letters, unwanted spam mail for ugly leather shoes no normal person with taste would ever buy. There's never just a letter from a friend, written on blue paper with soccer players or race cars on them, no envelopes with ten-dollar bills from grandma. At 31, one's grandma is usually old, and not in a way that allows her to go hiking all day long as a celebration of freedom after just retiring from work. There are always unopened letters on the dresser in the hallway, stuffed in the letterbox, long forgotten on the kitchen table underneath a newspaper dated back to the month prior. No good news there either.

In a way, being 31 is boring. There's nothing new to life anymore, all firsts have been experienced, all dumb mistakes have been made, no one is any wiser than before but aware that they should know about this thing and that they've heard about that thing before, and it's boring and bland in the weirdest way. The first sex, the first hangover, the first IKEA wardrobe that doesn't collapse after hours of sweat and tears wasted on building it alone in the first own flat. It's almost too boring.

Which is why Daniel is glad to experience a new first on a cool Sunday morning in October, though _glad_ is a very nice way to put it.

When he emerges from his bedroom at 7:30 am, dressed in nothing but a worn-out Nirvana shirt and a pair of chequered boxer briefs, and enters his living room after being brutally awakened by a loud noise that's not quite a knock but equally as irritating, there's a crow. A black bird, about the size of a cat, bonking its head against the window. Having a crow in his living room is a shock at first, he didn't expect this turn of events at an age that promises six days long hangovers from three beers and back pain that distracts him from making toast in the morning. It's weird, having a crow in his living room when he's entered it with the expectations of no crows being there. He doesn't _want_ it there.

How does one politely ask a crow to leave the apartment?

He approaches it slowly, head still hammering quietly with the afterglow from the night prior and the oh so dangerous lukewarm beer that he should've put into the fridge before drinking it, in hindsight, and his bare feet are making an unreasonably loud noise as he tries sneaking across the hardwood floor. The crow seemingly doesn't care and continues to flatter around near the window, occasionally bumping into the glass front and adding a monotonous _whump_ to the tapping of Daniel's feet.

The thing about crows is, Daniel doesn't know much about them. Not how to deal with them, not how to get them out of his apartment, and he's not even quite sure how it got inside in the first place. That question answers itself at least when a cool breeze blows in through the tipped balcony door and sends a shiver down his spine. The crow keeps bumping into the window. His head throbs in the same rhythm.

It's not a small bird exactly, still the size of a cat, after all, which does frighten Daniel slightly and makes him overthink his non-existent tactic. In a moment where the crow leaves the window alone just for a split second, Daniel pulls it open, as wide as he can, and the window isn't the biggest one he's ever seen, not even close to it, but it's definitely big enough for a crow to escape through. Except the crow doesn't and makes a noise that faintly reminds him of his own rough morning voice, mocking him before it flies in circles around the lamp on the ceiling. Daniel's stomach complains loudly.

He tries talking to the crow like a child, asking it politely to leave his flat, which results in the bird making a noise that scares his tired brain, and leads him to escape outside himself through the balcony door. If the crow decides to leave, the door is now wide open and Daniel has moved far enough away from it to not block the flight path.

And now he's standing there, 31 years old, freezing on his balcony with a semi-hard on, not because of the crow, of course, and it's 7:30 in the morning. He shouldn't even be awake yet, and still, he's on his balcony while a crow flies in circles near the ceiling of his living room. It's not how he wanted his weekend to go, it could probably not get any further from it.

Daniel tries talking to the disoriented bird once more, telling it which way to fly and how to get out, and that it _really has to leave now_. The crow, however, apparently has different plans. It lands on the armrest of Daniel's sofa and looks at him, blinking innocently, as if the black hell bird hasn't invaded his home and now refuses to leave. If it could, it would probably smile at Daniel to show him its tongue to make fun of him.

Instead, the bird leaves the couch alone again, which is a huge relief already, since it hasn't been cheap and Daniel loves it too much to get rid of it, and flies into the hallway. It disappears from Daniel's view and the doors are all closed normally, so it can only really be in the hallway now, together with his expensive sneakers and team wear that he would have to replace if the crow decides to take it home for its nest, and _how would he explain that to his press officer_?

Maybe this is just how it's going to be from now on. He's just the guy who lives together with a crow now, he'll have to build his entire personality around being that guy who lives in a flat-sharing community with a stupid bird. Daniel sighs and tries to hide his dick from his neighbors.

He doesn't know how late it is when the crow finally decides to leave his apartment, flattering through the open door and flying away without paying him any mind. Daniel hurries back inside to get into his warm bed before he's fully awake and his bed is completely cold. It affords some parkour skills to get back to bed without stepping into bird shit, but he manages and disappears under his blanket with an exhausted huff.

His back hurts, how ironic.

Daniel tries to go back to sleep, he even turns to lie on his back to ease the pain a bit, and his muscles are aching from God knows what, maybe he can't even run away from birds anymore without stretching beforehand. He's barely in his thirties, goddammit.

And how did that crow think its behavior was polite in any way? Breaking into Daniel's apartment, shitting all over the floor, forcing him out of bed that early on a Sunday, and then leaving without any acknowledgment, not even saying goodbye or complimenting the nice comfortable fabric of his couch. That crow was a bitch, and now Daniel can't fall asleep anymore.

Being 31 sucks sometimes, especially in a work field like Daniel's where his age is a key factor that everyone always tries using against him. It doesn't matter that he can still easily outrun Lando, though, he doesn't quite get the logic behind it all.

It's not going to get any better realistically, and at the end of the day, all he can flex with is that he knows what memes are and the life experience he might or might not have gathered. He's done a lot of stupid things over the years, and Charles gets unreasonably excited when Daniel tells him about what he used to do at his age.

Maybe being old doesn't suck as much as it feels at the moment, and he's not _old_ old yet, anyway. He's surrounded by people who enjoy his company, and the back pain is worth it when he puts another heavy trophy to the other dusty ones on the shelf, and all of that won't magically disappear as he keeps going. Being old allows him to do so much stuff, to experience things and see them from a different perspective, and people value his knowledge, even if he can be annoying about it all.

And now, he's had a crow in the living room. Later than Lando encountered the pigeon in his bedroom or Carlos's bird experience in Abu Dhabi but it has happened. It's a first, if not a very conventional one, but it's a first. There are still some firsts he hasn't experienced, and he only notices that now after getting chased by a stupid crow.

The first time realizing he's met the love of his life, the first time picking up his nephew from school and helping him with projects for his art class, the many firsts he'll have to go through should he ever have a child of his own. The first world championship, the first day in freedom after retiring when he will stress and think about what comes next. There's so much he has yet to go through, even if it seems like the life he's stuck in stops offering new things after a while.

It just took a crow in his living room at 7:30 am on a Sunday for him to realize that he doesn't know what's still waiting for him out there, what kind of drama he will be involved in and what kind of meme he'll be turned into next. Probably a crow related meme if he has to take a hard guess.

Man, fuck that crow.

**Author's Note:**

>  _"And then you stand there, 31 years old, on your balcony with morning wood, not because of the stupid bird of course, and wait for the crow to leave" WHY IS THAT DANIEL SJSJDJDK_ \- me, 4th November 2020
> 
> Thank you for reading this to the end, that means a lot to me! Kudos, comments, and any other kind of support are always very much appreciated <3
> 
> I will hopefully see you soon with more content x
> 
> (You can find me on [Tumblr](https://komkommertijd.tumblr.com/) (@komkommertijd) if you want to stay updated about more content and the random things that I like, I promise I won't bite)


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